Locals 2012: Dave Terranova

Are You a Local? Quiz

Take Steamboat Living’s simple quiz to help determine whether you’re a cheechako or a sourdough when it comes to your tenure in Steamboat.
1. White out is used to:
A. turn legs into jelly
B. correct mistakes on a term paper
C. warm up your legs on the first run
D. A and C
2. Three current postal clerks’ names are:
A. Don, Tom and Ron
B. Fred, Hank and Harriet
C. Julie, John and Norbert
3. Locals used to gather atop Thunderhead in the early morning for:
A. advice from Billy Kidd
B. free coffee/mimosas
C. rope drop
4. I try this ski parking sequence, in order:
A. tiny lot below Knoll Lot, Ski Time Square, Knoll Lot, Meadows Lot
B. Meadows Lot, Knoll Lot, Ski Time Square
C. rodeo grounds, City Market, Wildhorse Meadows
5. Drink out of the Lithium Spring and you may get:
A. the trots
B. a euphoric feeling
C. a ticket
D. algae in your teeth
6. The original name of the Yampa River was:
A. Bear River
B. Steamboat River
C. Anything Town USA River
D. Billy Kidd Brook
7. The original hospital in town now is:
A. a medical marijuana dispensary
B. Old Town Pub
C. Old Town Hot Springs
D. a tattoo parlor
8. The following people attended Perry-Mansfield:
A. Dustin Hoffman, Julie Harris and Lee Remick
B. Justin Bieber and Justin Timberlake
C. Marilyn Monroe
9. Touch the Buddy Werner statue atop Mount Werner and you’ll get:
A. arrested
B. good luck
C. cold fingers
10. The following Broadway musical resulted from Agnes de Mille square dancing in a schoolhouse in Hayden:
A. “Grease”
B. “Oklahoma”
C. “West Side Story”
11. The word “Yampa” comes from:
A. a flowering, edible root that grows along the river
B. the founder of town, Herbert B. Yampa
C. an Indian greeting
12. The real name of today’s Lighted Man is:
A. Tom Hanks
B. Jon Banks
C. Claudius Banks
13. The name of our local mountain range is:A. Park
B. Elk
C. Zirkels
D. Never Summer
14. These bands played at the Inferno:
A. Dave Matthews, Clarence Gatemouth Brown and Sonia Dada
B. Lynyrd Skynyrd, Taj Mahal and the Suburbs
C. Grateful Dead, Jethro Tull and Charlie Daniels
15. The original name of Steamboat Ski Area was:
A. Billy Kiddville
B. Storm Mountain
C. Grouse Creek
D. Wally World
16. The old Routt County license plates started with:
A. ZY
B. YK
C. WZ
17. Lincoln Avenue is so wide because:
A. it was designed to fit Hummers and Lincoln Navigators
B. it was used to drive cattle to stockyards
C. high school tuba players needed more room at Winter Carnival
18. The train depot once was one of the largest:
A. cattle shipping centers in the West
B. facilities to host Cabaret
C. coal-transfer stations in Colorado
How did you score?
5 points for each correct answer (90 total)
80 to 90: veritable John Crawford
70 to 79: Billy Kidd
60 to 69: five-year ski bum
50 to 59: came for the winter, stayed for the summer
Below 50: just visiting

Dave Terranova and his wife, Jodi, once dreamed of going back to school to earn degrees in veterinary science. But with a couple of kids and a mortgage, a return to campus wasn’t an option. So they did the next best thing: They bought a pet supply store.

That the business purchase allowed them to move back to Steamboat Springs for good was icing on the cake.

Most local canine and feline lovers recognize Dave as the smiling face behind the counter at Paws ’N Claws ’N Things in Sundance Plaza at Fish Creek shopping center. It might seem like a far cry from his previous career in pharmaceutical sales, but Dave sees the similarities as well as the differences.

“People are happy in our store,” he says. “It’s nice. I was selling medicine to sick people. Now I’m selling healthy products to customers who are having fun with their animals.”

And having fun is the atmosphere Dave maintains inside his store. He knows most customers — both human and pet — by name, and he takes pride in working with pet owners on solutions to whatever might ail their four-legged friends.

“Customer service is absolutely of the utmost importance to us,” he says. “I try to treat customers the way I want to be treated in a store.”

The Terranovas have owned Paws ’N Claws for eight years, which might seem like an eternity for Dave, who like many young Steamboat transplants spent his first few years hopping from job to job.

After graduating from Old Dominion University in Virginia with a degree in business and finance, Dave moved to Steamboat to be a ski bum for a year. He worked at SportStalker, where he met and became friends with Jodi. But he soon returned to his home state of Delaware to begin a career in banking.

Then the Yampa Valley called him back. It wasn’t long before he and Jodi became a couple. They eventually owned and operated Cody’s bar at Yampa Valley Regional Airport before Dave took a job in pharmaceutical sales back in Delaware in 2000. A call from a business associate here informed them of the pet supply shop for sale, and the rest is history.

“That was the ticket back to Steamboat,” he says.

When not at the store, Dave and Jodi spend most of their waking hours chasing their three children: Samantha, 14, Tyler, 13, and Anna, 10. There are weekend swim meets in the summer and Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club Nordic skiing competitions in the winter. And if there’s any time to spare, you can find Dave trail running on Emerald Mountain or schussing down the slopes of Mount Werner. But more than likely, you’ll see him helping a customer load a 40-pound bag of dog food into the back of a Subaru.

“I love this community,” Dave says. “The people are awesome and very supportive of a small business, which I’m very, very thankful for.”